Republicans blasted President Obama Friday for campaigning in Virginia near the largest U.S. naval base while ignoring their proposed solution to avoid looming defense cuts.
?The president has remained more engaged in his campaign than on addressing the needs of families in states like Virginia,? said a blog post from the office of Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. ?Will the president share with Virginia families his plan to replace the looming defense cuts that would leave us with the smallest Navy since 1915??
Mr. Obama is campaigning in Virginia Beach and Hampton Friday, near the U.S. naval base in Norfolk, before visiting Roanoke in the southwestern part of the battleground state. He?s seeking to shore up support in a state that he wrested from Republicans four years ago after decades of GOP victories in presidential contests.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One that Mr. Obama will talk about protecting military families by extending middle-class tax cuts, but she didn?t expect him to address the stalemate with Congress over pending defense cuts.
?The reason we?re in this situation,? she said, is that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the Republicans are focused on cutting taxes for ?millionaires and billionaires.?
Virginia?s economy is heavily reliant on military spending and could be affected by automatic spending cuts authorized by Congress and signed by the president last year. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, campaigning Thursday in Virginia Beach on behalf of Mr. Romney, told veterans that Mr. Obama would wreck the region?s economy through defense spending cuts in a second term.
?He has your region of the country right in his crosshairs,? Mr. Giuliani said at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post. ?He can do more damage to you than he does to most of the rest of America if we should make the mistake of re-electing him because the cuts he has in mind for our military are devastating.?
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has warned against the military spending cuts, which would automatically take effect if the White House and Congress fail to strike a longer-term budget deal. The president has called for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, and during this two-day tour of Virginia he will push for tax hikes on families earning more than $250,000 per year.
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday blamed the impasse on GOP lawmakers who oppose tax increases.
?The across-the-board cuts were objectionable and onerous to both sides for a reason,? Mr. Carney said. ?That?s why Congress has to act.?
The speaker?s office said that the House voted in May to replace the ?devastating cuts with common-sense spending cuts and reforms ? reducing the deficit by an additional $242.8 billion beyond the Budget Control Act while protecting our troops and our national security.?
?But the president and Senate Democrats have rejected the solutions in the House bill, and the Obama administration refuses to respond to requests from Congress on how it plans to implement the military cuts, and how specific federal programs and activities would be affected,? Mr. Boehner?s office said.
On Saturday, Mr. Obama will campaign in Richmond.
? Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
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